Date: March 4th 2008

REVEALED: THE US PLAN TO START A PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9366.shtml

United States officials including President George W. Bush
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice participated in a
conspiracy to arm and train Contra-style Palestinian
militias nominally loyal to the Fatah party to overthrow
the democratically-elected Hamas government in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories, an investigative article
in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair has revealed. ("The
Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008,
(http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/
gaza200804)

The allegations of such a conspiracy, long reported by The
Electronic Intifada, are corroborated in Vanity Fair with
confidential US government documents, interviews with
former US officials, Israeli officials and with Muhammad
Dahlan, the Gaza strongman personally chosen by Bush.

The article, by David Rose, recounts gruesome torture
documented on videotape of Hamas members by the US-armed
and funded militias under Dahlan's control. Hamas had
repeatedly alleged such torture as part of its
justification for its move to overthrow the Dahlan
militias and take full control of the interior of the Gaza
Strip in June 2007.

Vanity Fair reported that it has "obtained confidential
documents, since corroborated by sources in the US and
Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by
Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams
to provoke a Palestinian civil war." The magazine adds
that the plan "was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed
with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give
Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the
democratically-elected Hamas-led government from power."

Abrams was one of the key Reagan administration figures
involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, whereby
the US illegally armed militias in Nicaragua to overthrow
the ruling Sandinista government. Abrams was convicted and
later pardoned for lying to Congress.

While it has been known that the US engaged in covert
activity to subvert Palestinian democracy and provoke
Palestinians to shed each other's blood, the extent of the
personal involvement of top US officials in attempting to
dictate the course of events in Palestine -- while
publicly preaching democracy -- has only now been brought
to light.

Bush met and personally anointed Dahlan as "our guy" in
2003. In July 2007, The Electronic Intifada reported on a
leaked letter written by Dahlan and sent to the Israeli
defense minister in which he confirmed his role in a
conspiracy to overthrow then Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat for whose replacement Bush had
publicly called. Dahlan wrote: "Be certain that Yasser
Arafat's final days are numbered, but allow us to finish
him off our way, not yours. And be sure as well that ...
the promises I made in front of President Bush, I will
give my life to keep."

The US planning to overthrow the government elected by
Palestinians under occupation began immediately after the
Hamas movement won a clear victory in the January 2006
election for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas,
however, proved "surprising resilient."

At a meeting at Abbas' Ramallah headquarters in October
2006, Rice personally ordered Abbas to dissolve the
government headed by Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh "within two
weeks" and replace it with an unelected "emergency
government."

When Abbas failed to act promptly on Rice's order, the US
stepped up its efforts to arm Dahlan in preparation for
the attempted coup. Hamas foiled the coup plot by moving
preemptively against Dahlan's gangs, many of whom refused
to fight despite being furnished with tens of millions of
dollars in weapons and training. The US-conceived
"emergency government" headed by a former World Bank
official, Salam Fayyad, was eventually appointed by Abbas,
but its authority is limited to parts of the
Israeli-occupied West Bank.

While the United States and Israel were the driving forces
behind the civil war and coup plot, others had a hand
including several Arab states and their intelligence
services. "The scheme," Rose writes, "bore some
resemblance to the Iran-contra scandal" in that "some of
the money for the [Nicaraguan] contras, like that for
Fatah, was furnished by Arab allies as a result of US
lobbying."

Related Links:

Politics of fear, Osamah Khalil (8 October 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9028.shtml

Overcoming the conspiracy against Palestine, Ali Abunimah (18 July 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7116.shtml

Subverting democracy, Joseph Massad (4 July 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7083.shtml

A setback for the Bush doctrine in Gaza, Ali Abunimah, (14 June 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7030.shtml

Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?, Tony Karon, (21 May 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6925.shtml

The American proxy war in Gaza, Ali Abunimah (3 February 2007)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6494.shtml

Who is Mohammad Dahlan?, Arjan El Fassed (20 December 2006)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6275.shtml

Pinochet in Palestine, Joseph Massad (11 November 2006)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6018.shtml



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